If a friend, colleague or family member came to you and disclosed that they had been sexually assaulted, would you know what to do?
Do you believe in gender equality, but aren’t sure if you would call yourself a feminist?
———————————————————————————-
If these are questions that you’re interested in exploring, our next Masculinity: Under Construction (MUC) meeting is for you! Join us as we welcome our first guest speaker, Amina Doreh, Amina is the Public Education/Media Coordinator at the Sexual Assault Support Centre (SASC) of Ottawa. As a collective member of SASC for 4 years, Amina’s expertise is feminist-based peer support (crisis line, individual/group support) to women-identified people who are survivors of sexual violence.
Amina will speak about how to overcome resistance to feminism and how to handle disclosures of sexual assault. The talk will be followed by a question and answer period followed by a discussion.
As with other meetings of MUC, this meeting is open to all men and people who identify with a masculine identity. There is no cost to attend, though donations will be solicited to cover costs.
The organisers would like to thank Amina and SASC Ottawa (sascottawa.com) as well as Kind Space (kindspace.ca), for providing the workshop space. Kind Space is fully accessible.
Hope to see many of you there!
———————————————————————————-
Masculinity: Under Construction (https://www.facebook.com/groups/165991080728432/) is a local, grassroots, volunteer-run group for male-identifying folks to get together and discuss topics related to masculinity. The aim is to challenge ourselves, review our privilege, formulate a positive form of masculinity, build community and work towards change for ourselves and others.
We plan to have this volunteer work be grounded in feminist theory and practice. We will be checking in with online resources and real life folks about how to not perpetuate toxic masculinity ourselves. Even when we are trying to do good we need to keep ourselves in check and be accountable to our communities.
We meet once per month, or depending on the group’s needs. The format of events are semi-guided discussions. We’ll get a chance to share our experiences and questions and solutions in a safe space, where we will promote open conversation and learning. The goal is to push ourselves and each other to learn, and this can be an uncomfortable experience. However, any hate speech such as racism, sexism, transphobia, classism, and ableism will not be permitted. This is not a men’s rights group.